Vargas tops Allakhverdiev; wins title

"This is one of my greatest fights ever," Beltran said. "I had a change in opponents. He was a difficult, complex, awkward opponent. My hook and my body shots were the difference."

Beltran was supposed to face Rocky Martinez, the former two-time junior lightweight world titleholder from Puerto Rico. But Martinez got ill and pulled out of the fight last week and Usmanee, who had been training, accepted the bout on short notice.

All three judges had it for Vasquez, 117-110 and a surprisingly close 114-113 twice. ESPN.com also had it for Vasquez, 118-109.

Vasquez imposed himself on Felix, 21, of Mexico, and had him backing up often during a solid action fight. They both landed their share of clean shots during sustained exchanges. Felix, who countered a lot, flashed a strong left hook and Vasquez worked well to the body.

An accidental head-butt in the seventh round badly rattled both fighters, although it was Felix who emerged from it with a lump over his right eye.

In the ninth round, referee Robert Byrd deducted a point from Felix for kneeing Vasquez in the crotch. It was a big round for Vasquez, who landed some hard shots and seemed to hurt Felix with a combination to the head as the round was ending.

Felix landed a hard low blow in the 10th round and was warned by Byrd, but he didn't take a point. There was another bad accidental head-butt in the 11th round that shook up both guys and Felix appeared cut before they finished with an action-packed 12th round.

Vasquez, 26, of Costa Rica, won a vacant interim 130-pound belt in October via fifth-round technical decision against Rene Gonzalez, Vasquez's second stint with the interim title.

• Light heavyweight Oleksandr Gvozdyk (1-0, 1 KOs), 26, of Ukraine, who earned an Olympic bronze medal at the 2012 London Games, made his professional debut in explosive style, starching Mike Montoya (4-3-1, 2 KOs), 26, of Colorado Springs with five seconds left in the first round. Gvozdyk, who wound up signing with Top Rank thanks to his close relationship with Olympic teammate and two-time gold medalist Vasyl Lomachenko, swelled Montoya's right eye in the first 30 seconds of the fight and continued to batter him until dropping him very hard with a clean right hand on the chin. Referee Russell Mora immediately waved off the fight.

• Junior lightweight Oscar Valdez (10-0, 9 KOs), 23, a 2012 Mexican Olympian, destroyed Adrian Perez (10-5-1, 1 KO), 33, of Sarasota, Fla., in the fourth round of a one-sided fight. Valdez attacked Perez relentlessly throughout the fight, landing hard left hooks to the body and head. In the fourth round of their scheduled eight rounds, Valdez unloaded a combination that he finished with a debilitating left hook to the body that dropped a breathless Perez to all fours and referee Mora counted him out at 1 minute, 23 seconds. Valdez is scheduled for his next fight on May 17 at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on the Juan Manuel Marquez-Mike Alvarado undercard.